Sunday, April 18, 2010

Hi there... My name is Amanda Waldmannstetter, and I live in El Paso,
Texas, right on the border of Mexico. I just so happen to be married
to a German man whom I met very, very randomly via YouTube in 2006.
Long and convoluted story short – he got his visa and moved here. Now
we are finding ourselves in a very unique situation of trying to
incorporate three cultures into our lives, and finding that it's
rewarding, frustrating, bizarre and fun all at the same time!
I started my blog, http://krautundcracker.wordpress.com, very
recently, but I find it's been such a great way to illustrate how
we're trying to mix American, German and Mexican influences in our
household. On a typical day, I'll sit at my laptop taking Rosetta
Stone German lessons, while my husband (who is fluent in English) will
be reading through a Spanish lesson book. On the stove will be a pot
of boiling sauerkraut and dumplings, to be served with an ancho
chile/cream sauce and blueberry cobbler for dessert.
I get a kick out of learning the traditional German recipes he tries
to teach me, and he appreciates my Mexican food. But like the
proverbial Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial, when chocolate and
peanut butter slam into each other, we find that we're creating a
bunch of amazing concoctions by incorporating what each of us knows
into one dish.
Tonight, I decided to go for German-Asian fusion. Excuse the poor
quality of the photos, bitte/por favor! This camera has gone with me
to Munich, Paris, Frankfurt, Santa Fe, Truth or Consequences,
Albuquerque, Carlsbad Caverns, Rohr and back ten-fold. It won't die on
me. I sort of wish it would as it would be an excuse to get a new
camera.

Using what I had on hand, here's what I made. My husband, a typical
German in every way (rules, rules, rules! Meaning: Follow Recipes!),
loved this dish and agreed to eat the leftovers tomorrow.
We're just getting started on our lives together, and we live
modestly. That's what's so fun about all of these recipes, to us. We
use what we have and don't go running to the store to get every single
ingredient listed in a recipe. We just improvise.

Okay, here we go, the Amanda way. Read: no measurements, just eyeballed it.
• One sliced carrot
• Three sliced spring onions, whites and greens
• Four large sliced mushrooms
• Handful bean sprouts
• One cup-ish of sauerkraut
• Tablespoon of sliced fresh ginger
• About 5 large sliced canned water chestnuts
• About a third of a bunch of Italian parsley
• About 8 generous dashes of teriyaki sauce
• Red pepper flakes
• Half a tube of spicy pork sausage
• About a half pound of shrimp, cooked

Mix all of the above in a wok until the pork sausage is thoroughly cooked.

• About a tablespoon of Neufchatel cheese
• Wonton wrappers

Put a large pot on the stove, filled with water. Let it come to a
rolling boil. In the meantime, get out the wonton wrappers, two at a
time. Spread some Neufchatel cheese on four corners of one of the
wrappers, and put a pinch of the wok mixture on the cheese-spread
wonton wrapper. Top with the other wonton wrapper, and crimp the edges
so both sides are completely closed together. Finish until you have
about six dumplings per person. Carefully, with a slotted spoon, put
the dumplings in the boiling water, and let them simmer until they all
come to the surface. When they do, place them in bowls. At this time,
there will be extra liquid along with the dumplings in the individual
serving bowls. Don't discard this. It's good! The taste of the
contents of the dumplings make it a great soup.
Serve the dumplings with a sauce made of teriyaki sauce/red pepper
flakes/BBQ sauce/spoon full of Zuckerrübensirip (German red beet
syrup) or any pancake syrup, not maple. All mixed together.
This wonton "soup" makes for a great head-cold or hangover remedy!
Super spicy, nutritious, filling and cheap. Now, we just happened to
have all the ingredients on hand. The sausage for breakfast added to
shrimp for fajitas/salads were the most expensive ingredients, and the
rest were staples for us. AND I have lunch prepared for tomorrow!
We'll just cook a little white rice and pour the leftovers on top of
that.

Tomorrow I'll try to see just what I can do with the leftover
Neufchatel cheese! I'm leaning toward filling gorditas with the
cheese, deep frying them and serving them with a fruit syrup.
Remember, recipes are nice, but eureka moments are great!

All the recipes here have either been sent to me, adapted by me or found on the web. If I know the source I always give credit to the author/website. If you know of a source I may have missed please let me know.